From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Multidirectional]

Malenia lol, no thanks. Made three attempts and then just skipped her by summoning two people for help. Then went to Fire Giant and was pretty sure I'll end up using an ash summon for it, but ended up killing him on my own on second try. Annoying camera but still an entertaining spectacle he was.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, just because i'm limited by the stamina i have as SL1 doesn't mean i'm going to ignore fashion:



As you can see this get up is mostly a jack of all trades outfit for general open world and small dungeon play. Since i'm using that crystal tear that gives you 10 STR for 3 minutes, all my gear is oriented on taking advantage of that STR bonus, including my seal and catalyst. For bosses though, i like to switch to the big ass bonk axe which i can actually wield two handed with the 10 STR bonus. I have to take off my chest piece to avoid heavy rolling but that's just as well as it makes me look like a total Chad to just bonk away bare chested.

As for the rest, i have some holy weapons for skellies and stuff, a mace with Golden Vow in it, and the Morning Star which i use with blood greases for extra bleed, plus other greases and pots with fire, holy and poison damage.

 

[Child of Malkav]

https://webmshare.com/DevAb

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

there's something to be said about the amount of toys to play around with this game offers compared to previous From titles, which makes it feel more like an RPG.

This game is extraordinarily dumbed down in comparison to Dark Souls 2. They all are. 2 was the most RPG of the bunch. It had the largest number of viable builds, best PvP, most varied selection of weapons and attacks, you could upgrade armor. It's not even close.

 

[Ivan]

BTW, just because i'm limited by the stamina i have as SL1 doesn't mean i'm going to ignore fashion:



As you can see this get up is mostly a jack of all trades outfit for general open world and small dungeon play. Since i'm using that crystal tear that gives you 10 STR for 3 minutes, all my gear is oriented on taking advantage of that STR bonus, including my seal and catalyst. For bosses though, i like to switch to the big ass bonk axe which i can actually wield two handed with the 10 STR bonus. I have to take off my chest piece to avoid heavy rolling but that's just as well as it makes me look like a total Chad to just bonk away bare chested.

As for the rest, i have some holy weapons for skellies and stuff, a mace with Golden Vow in it, and the Morning Star which i use with blood greases for extra bleed, plus other greases and pots with fire, holy and poison damage.

 

[Lyric Suite]

That's the only David Bowie album i ever listened to in it's entirety, but mostly because Robert Fripp was in it lmao.

 

[Lambach]

 

[procrastinator]

BTW, just because i'm limited by the stamina i have as SL1 doesn't mean i'm going to ignore fashion:



As you can see this get up is mostly a jack of all trades outfit for general open world and small dungeon play. Since i'm using that crystal tear that gives you 10 STR for 3 minutes, all my gear is oriented on taking advantage of that STR bonus, including my seal and catalyst. For bosses though, i like to switch to the big ass bonk axe which i can actually wield two handed with the 10 STR bonus. I have to take off my chest piece to avoid heavy rolling but that's just as well as it makes me look like a total Chad to just bonk away bare chested.

As for the rest, i have some holy weapons for skellies and stuff, a mace with Golden Vow in it, and the Morning Star which i use with blood greases for extra bleed, plus other greases and pots with fire, holy and poison damage.

 

[Multidirectional]

Made few "proper" attempts of Maliketh just now. Yeah I'm completely bored of this sort of shit at this point. A large fucker that none the less is way more agile than me, jumps around the arena like it's nothing and spams AOE shit while barely letting me get a couple hits in. I've seen way too many of these by now. It suggests to me that From has reached a creative dead end with these fights. And I guess there's at least few more of these type of bosses left before end credits?

 

[Haplo]

Not really, no.

 

[NJClaw]

Made few "proper" attempts of Maliketh just now. Yeah I'm completely bored of this sort of shit at this point. A large fucker that none the less is way more agile than me, jumps around the arena like it's nothing and spams AOE shit while barely letting me get a couple hits in.

If you say Maliketh "barely lets you get a couple hits in", you're either playing with a very large weapon or completely misreading his moveset (and that's understandable, since it's very tricky). His most common combo (the one he does 99% of the times at the beginning of the fight) is a giant window where you can stick to him while he flails around. You just need to dodge the first attack and then he is helpless. Most of his other moves can be punished, but they require precise timings and positioning, while that one is basically free.

 

[Multidirectional]

Skipped Maliketh with Mimic Tear and then got close to killing Godfrey/Hoarah on first try, which prompted me to do him on my own. Got it at fifth attempt. These fucking Hoarah phase grabs. And of course constant AOEs again. I expect next fight to be annoying shit that I won't have patience for.

 

[cruel]

Godfrey - what a great fight. He took less than 10 tries total, so nothing compared to Mohg, but I liked it a lot (maybe minus freaking earthquake AoE). Radagon fell so easily I just knew there is more stuff coming. It seems that final fight will be more about Estus usage efficiency than full-on aggression. I think I would actually prefer Godfrey to be the final fight of the game.

Made few "proper" attempts of Maliketh just now. Yeah I'm completely bored of this sort of shit at this point. A large fucker that none the less is way more agile than me, jumps around the arena like it's nothing and spams AOE shit while barely letting me get a couple hits in. I've seen way too many of these by now. It suggests to me that From has reached a creative dead end with these fights. And I guess there's at least few more of these type of bosses left before end credits?

But... this is one of the best fights of the game, probably the best for me. He is not cheap at all, no 1-shot moves or cheap grabs. Super fast and aggressive, but without a lot of HP, very intense and rewarding fight. Give it some more time, learn his patterns - all his aerial waves attacks can be easily dodged based on sound queues alone for example.

 

[Multidirectional]

Got too happy about killing Radagon on first try, should've known it wouldn't be that easy..

 

[Lyric Suite]

Godfrey delayed foot stomp needs a damage buff. I think the one he does in the second phase should be instant kill for the player. It's easy to avoid but looks bad ass as fuck so i think it should have more weighty consequences given how intense the animation is.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Got too happy about killing Radagon on first try, should've known it wouldn't be that easy..

The beast is not hard just long winded enough (especially since you have to go past Radagon first) to punish inattention. Once you learn what it does all you have to do is not lose focus.

BTW, i think for now on i'll just leave Malenia last in all my play throughs (such as there will be). I suggested previously that everything from Consecrated Snowfields to Malenia feels like a DLC and even if my theory that it was based on ideas they actually had for an actual DLC are wrong it's probably best to treat it as such just to lighten the bloat of the end game. Finish the game first, take a pause then get to Haligtree at your leasure. Better than just rush through it as i've seen a lot of people do.

 

[Multidirectional]

Nope, I do not like this Elden Beast fight. Constant chasing him around the arena while dodging his nukes. I can see that I will find no pleasure in learning to do this "properly" so might as well use summons so I can get this over with and then play something with actually fun combat for a change. It was a good ride except for some retarded bosses and mostly boring open world. It's clear that this took more effort to make than Dark Souls III.

 

[Multidirectional]

Hahaha summoning players for this crap fight actually seems to make it harder. I had his health down to a quarter when attempting it on my own but with summons I die with Elden Beast still at half health. Also, most summons love to die during Radagon phase already.

*edit* Fuck it, back to grinding it alone, summons seem useless for this fight. Mimic Tear dies pretty fast too.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So i was trying to get summoned to hoard some more rune arcs and this fucking guy kept calling me for the tree sentinel and i don't know why but connection with this dude is a total clusterfuck. Never saw anything this glitchy fight is impossible as even though i can get a lot of free hits when he is static i randomly get killed when he starts moving again without warning. I got summoned three times and the last one he had FOUR guys helping him. When i got summoned i got a connection error as soon as i spawned but it didn't actually kick me out of the game. So now it's five people fighting a glitchy as fuck tree sentinel and suddely four of us die instantly out of nowhere lmao. So i tried again and it's this dude one more time now i'm locked from playing the game as i gotta way for this guy to go away. Damn bitch ass people stop playing with shitty internet connections.

 

[Multidirectional]

Fucking finally, Beast slain. No summons. I consider this to be one of the worst fights in the game, if not the worst. From excellent final boss of Sekiro to this crap.. I'll assume boss fights in ER were not designed by same people who did Sekiro bosses.

127 hours to finish one playthrough. Or is it only 127 hours and I missed half the content? Either way it was too long. I normally play FROM games only with fresh start and avoid NG+. I think when I can stomach to return to this one to try out other builds I will be sticking to NG+ because it takes way too long to gather all the toys. Hell, even getting enough upgrade materials to upgrade a single weapon takes too long.

 

[cruel]

I've finished the game. Level 174, 204 hours. What a ride, I started in late February, played slowly to avoid burnout, and here I am, almost 6 months later.

Final boss was a massive disappointed, unfortunately. It looked cool, and that's about it - you run around like an idiot hoping to get few hits in, horrible fight for a pure melee character. And I feel the final success rate is strongly dependent on RNG involved in whether it will decide to stay in place and allow you to hit it, or keep flying around and nuking you from afar. I think Godfrey would be a better fit for a final boss, especially considering his second phase. Or maybe make Radagon harder / faster / more aggressive and give him phase 2, not sure.

Hardest bosses for me (no player summons, no ashes, no cheese strategies):
1. Malenia - was not able to beat her solo so far
2. Mohg - 30 tries
3. Final Boss - 10-15 tries
4. Fire Giant / Draconic Sentinel / Margit on early level - 10+ tries

Best / most fun bosses:
1. Maliketh
2. Godfrey
3. Commander Niall
4. Margit

Will probably start as a sorcerer soon, lol.

Very good game overall, but not perfect:
- I played the whole game with like 5 weapons (battle axe, great axe, large club, guts / grafted swords) due to upgrade system limitations. There is no logical reason to force you to upgrade using 2 -> 4 -> 6 stones, 1 -> 2 -> 3 wouldn't break anything but allow for much more freedom. Or maybe even allow to re-use upgrade materials and let you experiment?
- open world was sometimes boring; the biggest offender for me was probably Liurnia after finishing Stormveil. If I didn't play slowly, I would probably burn out at this point
- recycled assets and bosses; partially excused due to size of the game

8.5/10 overall. I liked the game more than Dark Souls 2 (but this shouldn't be a surprise) and Dark Souls 3. Demon Souls had better atmosphere and it was a more 'tight' experience, but I think I liked ER more as well. Not sure about Bloodborne, probably it's a close match. First Dark Souls still stays the best for me, masterpiece.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think ER is the "Deus Ex" of this series. Lot's of options, not all of them as well tuned as something that focuses on only one thing like Thief (insert the From game you think is approriate for this analogy).

 

[Multidirectional]

I think ER is the "Deus Ex" of this series. Lot's of options, not all of them as well tuned as something that focuses on only one thing like Thief (insert the From game you think is approriate for this analogy).

Clearly that would be Sekiro, with its fine tuned combat made for a single type of playstyle.

 

[cruel]

I've started another playthrough. Seeing Limgrave after so many months spent almost feels alien at this point.

It seems that the game offers few different playstyles that will be totally unique to each other:
- tank / STR build (already completed)
- sorcerer
- dex / dual wield + light armor
- faith build

Not sure if arcane build is viable as well, but probably it is, seeing all the talks about bleed being OP. Or maybe do it as part of the dex build? Hmm.

Some of the incantations seem OP from the quick look - for example, doesn't this one trivialize the final boss completely?
https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Lord's+Divine+Fortification

 

[Multidirectional]

Not sure if arcane build is viable as well, but probably it is, seeing all the talks about bleed being OP. Or maybe do it as part of the dex build? Hmm.

At the end of my run my char was lv 155 60 ARC 50 VGR 40 END 20 DEX 16 STR 25 MND 14 FTH with Rivers of Blood and Brass Shield. Only last two points were put in DEX. Really liked the weapon art on ROB. Even made killing dragons without horse much more tolerable. I would just lock on to their head and stand below it waiting for it to get lower then use WA.

I have this tradition of doing every first run of new Souls game with sword and shield dude. I got the impression that I would have much easier time as a mage in this though. Especially with these fucking bosses that jump around all over the fucking place.